


Sherlock, Cinematography, Sex, and Gender

by notagarroter (redbuttonhole)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Feminism, Gen, Gender, Laura Mulvey, Meta, cinematography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2018-11-03 17:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/notagarroter
Summary: On the way BBC Sherlock sexualizes Sherlock and challenges traditional gender conventions.





	1. Chapter 1

Proposed: The cinematography of BBC Sherlock sexualizes and objectifies Sherlock/Benedict Cumberbatch in a manner traditionally associated with female stars.

The following is a close reading of the visual choices made in BBC Sherlock, read through Laura Mulvey's essay [Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema](http://imlportfolio.usc.edu/ctcs505/mulveyVisualPleasureNarrativeCinema.pdf) [pdf]).

Mulvey's argument is that cinema is structured so that women are always being looked at in a sexual way, both by the camera/audience and by the men in the movie, and that men never are. Even if a man is attractive or glamorous, the viewer is meant to identify with him in desiring and possessing the women in the movie. The man is never objectified or directly sexualized. Mulvey was writing in the 1970s, and her examples in that essay are drawn exclusively from Golden Age Hollywood movies.

My argument is that Sherlock/Benedict Cumberbatch, despite being male, is objectified and sexualized by the camera on Sherlock in the same way as the actresses Mulvey mentions in her examples. To demonstrate this, I'm going to compare shots from Sherlock with shots from Golden Age Hollywood movies. 

* * *

 

To begin with, let's talk the fact that [Steven Moffat says](http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/benedict-cumberbatch-not-sexy-enough) the BBC told him (regarding Benedict Cumberbatch), "You promised us a sexy Sherlock, not him."

Right off the bat, we know that Moftiss and the BBC always explicitly had in mind that this Sherlock would be portrayed as sexy. This was something that was *discussed* in pitch meetings. Not strong, not heroic, not likeable, not charismatic. Not handsome, not rugged, not attractive, not appealing. Sexy.

Okay, but Cumberbatch is a movie star, of course he's good-looking. Aren't all the men on the show good-looking? Aren't people on TV generally good looking? Sure, but I maintain that there is something different in how Sherlock is shown. Everyone on the show is attractive and well-dressed, but Sherlock is presented as much more highly eroticised and on display.

Mulvey: "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness."

Look at how low Sherlock's collar is buttoned, and how much of his throat this reveals.

 

Compare that with Lestrade's collar in the same scene.

 

Now compare with a shot of Marlene Dietrich that emhasizes her legs, in contrast to the other woman in the shot:

 

Mycroft and Moriarty are also always both impeccably tailored and put together -- but their shirts aren't [at constant risk of popping a button](http://sherlocked-for-life.tumblr.com/post/36920047720).

 

Cumberbatch, on Sherlock's suits: "I get to wear very well-cut, good-looking suits although there's so little waist that sometimes I can't breathe or digest properly." This just to point out that these suits are not cut for comfort. Between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, [whose clothes do you think were more comfortable](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_myX5Q4qMDhY/TBKe-RViQpI/AAAAAAAAE_g/WPiYICDzrNs/s1600/Lauren-Bacall-Et-Humphrey-Bogart.jpg)? What about between Molly and Sherlock? Or John and Sherlock?

 

See how high John's collar is buttoned, and how baggy and padded his clothes are. John, I think, makes an especially instructive example, because irl Martin Freeman seems to be about as slender and lithe as Cumberbatch is, and yet over and over I see John described in fanfic as "stocky", "compact", "broad". I don't think this is the result of a mass delusion. I believe the show's creators have consistently dressed Freeman in bulky jumpers and coats and shot him at certain angles to emphasize/create a contrast with Cumberbatch's body. Indeed, this trick is even explicitly referenced in the text of the show: "Take the precaution of a good coat and a short friend."

Mulvey: "Similarly, conventional close-ups of legs (Dietrich, for instance) or a face (Garbo) integrate into the narrative a different mode of eroticism. One part of a fragmented body destroys the Renaissance space, the illusion of depth demanded by the narrative, it gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon rather than verisimilitude to the screen."

Mulvey is saying a few things here. One is that the camera objectifies actors by chopping their bodies into pieces and parts so that the physical body becomes more important than the person. Like so:

 

 

 

 

[violethuntress](http://tmblr.co/mnhCuiBVS7agOsudE95tTUQ) pointed out that close ups of faces are different from close-ups of other body parts, like legs.  She observed, quite correctly, that focusing on a person's face is much less dehumanizing than focussing on other body parts.  However, I do think it's significant that the shots above are not merely close-ups of Benedict's face, but shots that chop the face up into parts. A face is not a face without all its parts, and the camera is very aware that Cumberbatch's lips and eyes can be construed as fetish objects by the spectator.

The camera can also objectify an actor by holding their image in a static shot, so the image interrupts the narrative flow instead of driving it. Furthermore, showing an actor in tight close up removes the actor from the context of the narrative.

 

 

 

Compare again with this shot of Freeman, where he is shown with a great deal of narrative context.

 

Mulvey: "In contrast to woman as icon, the active male figure (the ego ideal of the identification process) demands a three-dimensional space.... He is a figure in a landscape."

In this shot, we not only see a fair amount of 221b, we also see most of Freeman's body, and we see the cane in his hand. All of these elements serve as reminders that this is a story taking place over time, and John is part of that story. He is moving into the flat, he is losing his need for the cane. The shot of Sherlock above gives us almost no information about the story beyond what we can read on Sherlock's face. The emphasis is on the static beauty of that face, not the story that surrounds it.

Mulvey: "As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence."

One would naturally assume that in a show called Sherlock, Sherlock himself would be the main male protagonist. But I'm arguing that the cinematography treats him as if he is the main female protagonist (structurally, not literally).

In this example from Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck is the female protagonist. In this scene, she is shown wearing a towel, while Fred MacMurray, clothed, gazes at her. Of course, she is looking at him too, but he's the one getting an eyefull.

 

 

Compare with Sherlock at Buckingham Palace:

 

Even though Sherlock is the male protagonist, the composition of the shot prompts the viewer to identify not with the naked Sherlock, but with the clothed men looking at him. The gaze of the clothed characters and the viewers' gaze meet in the middle on Sherlock's nude body.

Mulvey: "But as the narrative progresses [the female protagonist] falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property...; her eroticism is subjected to the male star alone. By means of identification with him, through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too." 

It has been argued that by showing Sherlock as desired by females, the show is letting the spectator identify with Sherlock and fantasize that we can possess those women. This is consistent with Mulvey's thesis. My argument, however, is that the cinematography contradicts this. The spectator is not meant to identify with Sherlock in this context. In the context of the desiring gaze, Sherlock is as much a passive recipient as Marlene Dietrich or Marilyn Monroe or Lauren Bacall were. He is always the object of attempted seduction and never the seducer.

 

Molly watching Sherlock in [this gif set](http://sherlocked-for-life.tumblr.com/post/49732276745) illustrates the idea perfectly: Molly watches Sherlock engaging in an erotically charged activity. Molly is not shot in a particularly sexy way -- she is shot in a way to emphasize her status as observer, and also to suggest the specator's identification with her in watching and desiring. Nothing in this shot suggests that we should identify with Sherlock and wish to seduce Molly. Compare this sequence with these shots of Dietrich's character performing in The Blue Angel.

 

 

Dietrich's body is explicitly sexualized as she performs for two audiences -- the one within the movie and the one watching the men watching Dietrich. The men watching Dietrich occupy the same structural role as Molly does in the above gif. Not merely observing, but leering.

Mulvey: "The device of the showgirl allows the two looks to be unified technically without any apparent break in the diegesis. A woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined without breaking narrative verisimilitude."

Mulvey references this scene with Bacall in To Have and Have Not as an example of a performance where the gaze is shared between the viewer and the on-screen spectator.

 

Notice the men gazing up at her adoringly. I talked before about Sherlock as showgirl, as performer. Compare the above with Sherlock performing his Pink Lady deduction for John and Lestrade.

 

 

Sherlock twirling in his fitted suit and fabulous coat, making an elaborate show of his deductions while less glamorous characters look in awe and adoration.

All right, if you made it this far, thank you! Perhaps I've convinced you that Sherlock's cinematography consistently objectifies and sexualizes the character in a way traditionally reserved for female characters. If so, maybe take another look at [my other post](http://notagarroter.tumblr.com/post/98383890945/visual-pleasure-and-sherlock), it might make more sense now. Either way, I hope you at least enjoyed the pretty pictures!

One last note: It has been pointed out to me that the show clearly identifies Sherlock as a traditionally masculine presence -- Sherlock drives the narrative and is an active agent in his own drama.  There's also an argument to be made about how the show consistently feminizes John relative to Sherlock.  These are totally valid arguments that I happen to agree with, they're just not the argument I'm making here (mostly because this is long enough already).  But I invite and encourage others to articulate those and any other relevant arguments.

ETA: I was remiss before, I should have directly credited [prettyarbitrary](http://tmblr.co/mjA5mIfOjEE87wf-HqLdbWw),  tenebrica and [professorfangirl](http://tmblr.co/mo_7FJZIadZEY6wsYAaR4eA) as well as [violethuntress](http://tmblr.co/mnhCuiBVS7agOsudE95tTUQ) for prompting some of my thoughts here.  no analysis is composed in a vacuum!  I am grateful for their contribution/inspiration.


	2. Chapter 2

> **[hullabalooloo](http://hullabalooloo.tumblr.com/)** asked:
> 
> I have a feminist film theory question. I read Laura Mulvey's essay and had some questions about her use of feminist theory. Since the essay was written during the mid 1970s, I take issue with the structural feminist ideology in the article, particularly when applied in the present day. Yet, I have seen a number of metas which uncritically use this text as a foundation. Do you find structural feminist ideology limited? I know little of film studies, but a bit of women's studies. Thanks

 

Thank you for this wonderful ask!  I was hoping someone would bring up a question like this.

I want to start by saying that I am somewhat protective of Mulvey and feminists of her ilk and era.  I think it is very tempting to imagine ourselves *beyond* their concerns and therefore no longer in need of their theories, or to fixate on the flaws in their arguments and use that as an excuse to dismiss them.  It is tempting (for me as much as anyone) to say, “this is not my experience of gender, therefore this type of theory is useless to me.”

I think we need to resist this temptation, because the arguments of 70s feminists, while they may strike us as old-fashioned, are usually more complex than they seem at first glance, and often confront us with truths that remain as uncomfortable now as they were then.  A lot of people around today stand to benefit if they can convince us that patriarchal structures have all been vanquished, and feminism is no longer necessary.  It should come as no surprise that those people are the ones propping up patriarchal structures.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that caveat out of the way…  Yes, I think there are flaws in Mulvey’s argument, and I think we owe it to Mulvey to engage critically with her text, rather than accepting it as some kind of untouchable gospel.  That was, in fact, one goal of [my meta](http://notagarroter.tumblr.com/post/99571665812/sherlock-cinematography-sex-and-gender) – to point out that patriarchal structures like traditional cinematography and entrenched beauty standards can be used to objectify men as well as women.  Patriarchy actually doesn’t care whether your body is male or female, as long as the structures of power remain in place.

I also wanted to point out that women, like men, derive pleasure from these structures of power and are complicit in maintaining them (an idea which Mulvey emphatically rejects at the end of her essay: “Women, whose image has continually been stolen and used for this end, cannot view the decline of the traditional film form with anything much more than sentimental regret.”).

There are other issues, too.  Writing up this meta and searching for useful screen grabs over the past couple of days has made me very aware of certain places where Mulvey’s argument… I don’t want to call them weaknesses, but there are places where I agree that it would be productive to put a little pressure on her analysis. Not to tear it apart, but to complicate it and enrich it.  
  
The biggest problem as I see it is that Mulvey cherry picks her evidence. Why rely only on old black and white movies when she was writing in the 1970s?  And if she is trying to make a point about cinematography/cinema in general (rather than Hollywood in particular), why never reference other film traditions, like French or British? Or even Hollywood produced female-centered movies of the Golden Age like [Mildred Pierce](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMildred_Pierce_%2528film%2529&t=YzZlOWYyOTc3YmYxYTNiYzRjMWY4MWZmYjY1MjIxNGMwNzhmNmMwNCxmOFZvUmJqZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3A2xiArga9qfwOyFJ_39TPZQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fnotagarroter.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F99618279870%2Fi-have-a-feminist-film-theory-question-i-read&m=1)? Why only use the vampiest vixens as her examples, instead of talking about Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn?   
  
And in fact, even the examples she does use are more complex than she allows… certainly Lauren Bacall and Marlene Dietrich are objectified in their movies, but there is also a ton of gender play in their roles. I rewatched a fair amount of these stars in various roles in order to collect screen grabs for this, and I was surprised at how playful their movies are with gender conventions. For example, the plot of To Have and Have Not strongly emphasizes that Bacall’s character is sexually pursuing Bogart’s, even while acknowledging that this runs counter to gender norms. And I hardly need to mention Dietrich’s affinity for dressing in drag, both onscreen and off.   
  
And why did Mulvey ignore classic films like Tarzan, which can certainly be read as sexually objectifying male bodies?  
  
I suspect Mulvey was aware of all these issues, but needed to simplify her analysis in order to make a powerful argument. (I’m sympathetic because I just did the same thing – in my meta, I deliberately favored concision and coherence over a richer but harder to grasp analysis of the material.)  The reality of gender and cinematography throughout the history of cinema is indeed more complex than is conveyed by Mulvey’s short, incisive essay, but that, to me, is not at all the same thing as saying that her argument is wrong, that women are not objectified, or that movies treat men and women the same.

One last thing – I noticed in your tags that you referred to Mulvey’s feminism as “essentializing.”  I think Mulvey would reject that notion.  For Mulvey, her main goal was to point out the usually-invisible structures of patriarchy in hopes of destabalizing them.  If these structures were inherent, natural, essential, or inevitable, there would be no point in trying to dismantle them.  It would be like arguing with gravity.  My sense is that Mulvey believes patriarchy to be culturally constructed, and her purpose is to shift that culture. 

I happen to believe that culture *has* shifted, and I think Mulvey is to be credited with some of the work that required.  But there is still work to be done.

(And thanks again for raising a very important and thought-provoking question!)


End file.
